Welcome to day 11 of this year’s walk down Christmas Memory Lane!

As much as yesterday’s memory was quite unique, today’s memory is, in some ways, even more unique… in both a positive and a sad way at the same time.

You’ll see what I mean…

Is this first Christmas Memory post you’re seeing?
You can get caught up by starting back on day 1 to understand this year’s theme.

Doug & Giving

This particular Christmas, someone had come into our life who would ultimately not be there very long. Doug had come to church through a prison re-insertion program and was as tough as nails after a long life (although he was young) of near utter dysfunction, and years in prison.

We tried to help him experience a normal Christmas with our family – decorating the tree together, sharing a few meals, etc. But ultimately, he’d spent so much time in prison, that to a certain degree… living outside of prison was more uncomfortable for him… he eventually returned, but not without leaving fingerprints on our heart.

Through him we were introduced to a segment of our city’s population that we didn’t have a lot of connection to and that year, a bunch of us gathered at church on Christmas Day and put together boxes of turkey dinner, that we then delivered to a few homeless shelters and the rooming house where Doug lived.

It felt good to give and was a good lesson for our kids, that Christmas Day isn’t always just about us and our toys & pleasures.

Later that week (I believe it was New Year’s Eve), we gathered with our friends John & Adriana Vladeanu for a candlelight service. I had attended their wedding in Romania and this was Adriana’s first Christmas in Canada.

They are special friends that we love a lot and with whom we didn’t get to spend quite enough time, before our move to France.

They were, however, Sophie’s first connection to Romania… a country where she spent 5 months studying and returned to again last summer.

Thank you sharing this memory and…